A 

A 

:so 

U 

n 

JTHE 

1 

HNRE 

2 
8 
0 
2 
4 
2 

7 

ilONAL 

-IBRARY  FAC 

II 

5 

1 

^^^^B^ 

.ri-® 


•Ot/(&<?9^^V<iK:- 


TH  E 


Ml 


s 


im 


Ki5 


AN   ADDRESS, 


19 


I\EV.  A.  J.  NELSON,  A.M. 


Centennial  Educational  Meeting, 


^ 


HELD    IN    THE 


M.  E.  0HUR0H,  NAPA  0ITY,  GALIFOI^NIA, 


February   15TH,  i6th  and  17TH. 


SAN  FRANCISCO: 

HENKY    E.    PASTOR,    BOOK  AND  JOB    PRINTER. 
1885. 


THE 


CHRISTIAN  COLLEGE. 


M. 


6= 


'I  %Mm\ 


REV.  A.  J.  NELSON,  A.M 


Centennial  Educational  Meeting, 


HELD    IN    THE 


[.   E.    GHUI^GH,    NAPA   0ITY.    0ALIFOP.NIA, 


February  15TH,   i6th  and  17TH. 


SAN  FRANCISCO  : 

HENRY    E.    PASTOR,    BOOK    AND   JOB    PRINTER. 

188=;. 


H33:, 

' — ^ 


CORRESPONDENCE. 


REV.   A    J.   NELSON    A.M.: 

Dear  Sir:  It  affords  me  much  satisfaction  to  learn  that 
the  urgency  of  the  friends  of  sound  education  is  compelling  you  to  publish  your  admirable 
address  on  "  The  Christian  College."  I  have  already  given  public  expression  to  my 
appreciation,  but  permit  me  to  add  again  my  voice  to  the  long  list  of  requests  you  have 
already  received  for  a  wide  circulation  of  the  address  to  which  the  people  of  Napa 
listened  with  such  profit  and  delight.  Our  people  are  not  selfish  enough  to  wish  to 
monopolize  a  pleasure  which  it  were  well  for  tens  of  thousands  to  enjoy.  The  question 
which  you  discuss  lies  at  the  chief  nerve-center  of  our  national  life,  and  the  manner  of  its 
settlement  will  inevitably  determine  the  future  of  the  greatest  experiment  of  free  gov- 
ernment. M.  C.    BRIGGS. 


% 293485 


THE 


CHRISTIAN  COLLEGE 


*'  6cholb,  the  fear  of  the  Xorb,  that  h  toisbom  ; 
anb  to  bcpart  from  eoil  is  unbci'Citanbing/'^/t^^^. 


^aV^E  are  near  the  close  of  sixty  centuries  of  human  history, 
^'V  ^^^  human  history  and  human  experience  both  corrob- 
orate the  declaration  of  the  text. 

T/ie  most  complete  character  and  loftiest  intellect  are  the  pro- 
duct of  religious  thought. 

Every  forward  movement  of  the  race  has  had  its  origin 
and  inspiration  in  some  great  thought  which  has  awakened  and 
kindled  to  a  blaze  all  the  powers  of  the  soul.  History  is  but 
ideas  worked  out  into  deeds,  formulated  in  declarations  of 
rights,  decisions  of  councils  and  courts,  and  which,  after  long 
conflict,  have  been  crystallized  in  constitutions  and  organized 
in  churches  and  states.  Free  thought  has  been  the  instrument 
in  all  reforms;  religious  ideas  the  origin  of  all  great  intellectual 
achievements  and  race-lifting. 

We  are  closing  the  first  century  of  our  organic  existence 
as  a  church.  We  measure  events  by  years  ,  but  God  does  not 
measure  moral  movements  by  our  almanacs. 

The  ratio  of  events  is  not  reducible  to  any  human  form- 
ula; sometimes  long  years  elapse  without  apparent  progress — 
the  forces  are  organizing,  and  when  all  is  ready,  a  nation  or  a 
church  is  born  in  a  day. 


K 


^ % 


IHl.    CHRISTIAN    COLLEGE. 


The  two  great  institutions  of  the  century  and  of 
modern  history  are  American.  Both  were  born  on 
the  same  soil,  born  about  the  same  time,  and  born  out  of 
the  same  common  thought-  the  thought  of  Liberty.  The 
spirit  of  the  one  fled  from  oppression  and  proclaimed  all 
men  free  and  etjual.  The  soul  of  the  other  broke  away  from 
a  fatalistic  philosophy  and  a  dead  ecclesiasticism,  and 
preached  free  will,  free  grace,  and  free  men.  One  is  American 
Republicanism;  the  other,  American  Methodism.  One  offers 
a  home  to  all  fugitives  from  oppression ;  the  other,  a  heaven  to 
"  all  who  desire  to  flee  from  the  wrath  to  come."  One  seeks 
to  make  man  a  complete  citizen;  the  other  proposes  to  instruct 
him  how  he  may  become  a  complete  saint. 

The  race  has  but  two  great  needs :  the  formation  of  char- 
acter and  the  development  of  powers —  Wisdom  and  Under- 
standing:  complete  living  and  complete  knowing ;  the  need 
to  be  converted  and  the  need  to  be  educated. 

The  two  great  institutions  needed  by  the  coming  centuries, 
then,  are  the  church  and  the  college.  The  two  great  leaders  of  the 
future,  the  chief  instruments  that  are  to  mold  society  and  the 
state,  are  the  preacher  and  the  college  professor. 

There  are  three  modern  theories  of  human  culture:  the 
Scientific,  the  Literary,  and  the  Christian. 

THE  SeiENTIFie  THBO!^Y 

Is  based  upon  the  fallacy  of  false  assumption;  hence,  can  never 
result  in  the  complete  development  of  the  race.  It  treats  jnan 
as  belonging  only  to  this  world.  To  learn  the  laws  of  nature, 
and  how  to  use  them  for  our  own  benefit,  is  the  great  object 
to  be  attained,  according  to  this  theory.  To  put  the  machinery 
of  the  body  in  working  order,  and  to  finish  up  and  polish  the 
intellect  as  a  great  engine  to  drive  this  machine,  in  order  to 
better  accomplish  the  secular  work  of  this  life,  is  the  chief  end 


Ih. 


-% 


THE    CHRISTIAN    COLLEGE. 


of  scientific  education.  This  theory  makes  no  provision  lor 
heating  the  steam  or  for  the  proper  instruction  of  an  engineer. 

Mind  is  propelled  by  motive  as  certainly  as  is  the  locomo- 
tive by  steam.  Reduce  this  power,  and  you  reduce  the  forward 
motion  in  the  same  ratio.  If  motive  is  limited  to  this  world, 
there  is  not  sufificient  power  left  in  the  most  vigorous  mind  to 
overcome  the  up-hill  grades  of  life. 

The  scientific  theory  has  no  provision  for  proper  manly 
motive.  It  has  no  place  for  conscience,  for  it  needs  none.  It 
determines  human  actions  as  it  does  the  motions  of  the  planets. 
Therefore,  it  is  calculus  man  needs  to  act  well  his  part,  not 
conscience;  and  mathematics  is  worth  more  than  morals  to 
solve  the  problems  of  this  life,  by  this  theory. 

What  estimate  would  we  place  on  the  astronomer  who 
calculates  the  movements  of  a  planet  without  taking  into  the 
problem  the  great  fact  that  there  are  other  worlds  upon  which 
these  movements  depend?  Conduct  and  highest  culture  de- 
pend as  much  on  man's  knowledge  and  belief  in  the  future  as 
the  movements  and  velocity  of  a  planet  in  its  orbit  depend  on 
the  fact  of  the  worlds  beyond. 

By  this  theory  education  is  only  negative — only  taking  off 
the  pressure  and  letting  mind  act. 

"  Remove  ignorance,"  says  Herbert  Spencer,  "  and  you 
put  an  end  to  crime."  "Conduct  is  the  adjustment  of  means  to 
ends  ;  good  and  bad  is  the  wise  or  unwise  adjustment  of  means 
to  ends."  But  facts  are  more  valuable  than  philosophies  in  the 
solution  of  the  problem  of  life.  History  furnishes  a  cloud  of 
witnesses,  and  all  deny  Mr.  Spencer's  proposition. 

The  knowledge  of  "good  and  bad"  can  only  be  attained  by 
a  broad  generalization  of  all  the  facts  and  phenomena  of  life; 
hence,  the  scientific  conscience  is,  at  most,  only  a  human  syl- 
logism. 

The  Signal  Bureau  may  determine  the  condition  of  the 
continental  current  running  from  southwest  to  northeast,  and 


n. 


^  yc 


THK     CHRISTIAN     COLLEGE. 


make  shrewd  guesses  of  the  approaching  storm;  but  it  must 
have  all  the  facts  before  it  can  make  the  complete  generaliza- 
tion. But  the  facts  of  lite  are  more  numerous  and  more  com- 
plex than  the  facts  of  the  weather;  and  were  this  theory  true, 
not  one  man  in  a  hundred  thousand  would  ever  attain  to  a 
knowledge  of  right  and  wrong,  and  ignorance  would  be  the 
only  possible  crime  by  the  scientific  theory. 

Every  system  of  culture  that  treats  man  only  as  an  inhab- 
itant of  this  world  is  both  unsatisfactory  and  unscientific. 

The  civil  and  religious  institutions  are  facts  that  must  go 
into  every  broad  generalization  of  life.  Every  church,  every 
cemetery,  is  a  proof  of  a  power  within  that  links  man  to  another 
world.  Hence,  every  college  that  makes  no  provision  for  the 
education  of  the  conscience  is  a  failure,  and  is  behind  the 
age,  and  behind  all  the  ages  of  the  past.  Human  nature  is  out 
of  balance;  appetite  and  passion  rule  the  judgment  and  the 
conscience.  Humanity  is  sick,  weary  and  wan,  pale  and 
painted,  suffering  and  sinning;  it  must  have  help.  It  is  not 
quantity  nor  quality  of  brain  that  is  most  needed;  the  convic- 
tion of  conscience  is  more  valuable  to  the  race  than  the  secrets 
of  physiology  or  the  mysteries  of  chemistry;  worth  more  to 
the  State  than  all  her  public  lands,  more  than  all  her  public 
schools.     Virtue  is  the  only  hope  of  the  nation  and  the  race. 

THE  LITERARY  THEORY 

Is  broader  and  more  elevating  than  the  scientific,  yet  insufficient 
for  the  needs  of  man,  It  has  furnished  the  world  with  speci- 
mens of  more  exalted  character  and  of  greater  physical  and 
intellectual  achievements. 

But  it  is  built  on  a  false  hypothesis;  on  a  half  truth,  which  is 
a  fatal  error.  It  assumes  that  man  is  wrajit  u])  in  mind  as  the 
acorn  in  the  oak.  All  he  needs  is  development — soil  and  sun- 
shine; that  opportunity  and    education  will  develop  the  race. 

i^ ^ 


THE    CHRISTIAN    COLLEGE. 


The    error   is    in    substituting   growth  for  goodness,  polish  for 
purity,  culture  for  character,  in  the  highest  and  best  sense. 

It  rests  upon  a  postulate  that  needs  proof:  that  culture 
depends  upon  models  instead  of  morals — ^on  a  mental  bias 
instead  of  a  new  birth.  The  great  masters  of  literary  excel- 
lence are  demonstrations  of  the  inade([uacy  of  this  theory.  The 
models  used  in  our  college  classes  and  in  the  lecture-rooms 
have  no  tendency  to  quicken  the  conscience  or  arouse  the  spir- 
itual faculties,  and  develop  the  whole  man. 

The  Greek  soul  is  heathen;  its  poetry  is  brilliant  and  beau- 
tiful, but  it  is  pure  paganism.  Homer  is  a  sublime  artist,  but 
destitute  of  all  reverence.  His  matchless  sentiments  are  all 
aglow;  his  brilliant  imagination  is  on  fire;  he  blazes  and  burns 
like  the  wild  grass  of  the  prairies,  but  leaves  nothing  for  the 
soul  but  darkness  and  desolation.  He  feeds  on  the  landscape; 
he  digests  the  mountains  and  the  hills;  he  lives  in  the  rocky 
caves  and  shady  dells;  he  drinks  in  the  ^-Egean  Sea  to  quench 
his  thirst;  and  transmutes  them  all  into  charming  words  of 
rhythmic  beauty.  The  imagination  is  excited,  but  the  soul  is  left 
as  bare  and  barren  as  the  blasted  heath  where  Macbeth's 
witches  met. 

Behind  his  forms  of  supernal  beauty  there  is  no  personal 
presence  to  satisfy  the  human  spirit.  The  highest  types  of  men 
this  theory  can  produce  are  lop-sided  and  unhappy.  Beauty, 
passion,  art,  cannot  cancel  conscience  nor  meet  the  high  de- 
mands of  the  immortal  soul. 

If  the  age  depends  for  its  highest  culture  on  the  gems  of 
a  pagan  literature,  it  may  be  inspired  by  the  gusts  of  passion, 
be  impetuous,  brave,  and  reckless;  but  without  moral  motive, 
true  affection,  or  self-control. 

Three  men  are  principally  responsible  for  the  popular  wave 
that  now  sweeps  over  two  continents,  coloring  our  literature  and 
giving  a  momentum  to  the  literary  theory  in  most  of  our  col- 
leges—  Goethe,  Carlyle,  Emerson. 


-dz 


THK     CHRISTIAN     COLLEGE. 


Goethe  must  he  acknowledged  as  a  high  priest  in  literature. 
A  man  of  most  marvellous  intellect,  he  shot  up,  like  a  century- 
plant,  far  above  his  fellows  ;  bloomed  in  the  highest  atmos- 
phere, then  ])erished  in  the  shadow  of  his  own  genius — a  pale, 
sickly  critic;  a  proud  but  ))()lished  scholar;  a  keen,  cold  thinker, 
destitute  of  all  moral  emotion.  He  had  flame  without  heat, 
color  without  substance;  he  produced  beautiful  flowers,  but 
destitute  of  all  fragrance;  a  wealth  of  matchless  leaves,  but  no 
luscious  fruit — a  proof  that  genius  and  opportunity  need  soil  in 
which  to  root  themselves.     Add  conscience  to  his — 

"  manner,  mastery  and  might ; 
His  power  of  handling  shadow,  air,  and  sprite," 

And  Goethe  is  supernal. 

Carlyle  was  both  the  child  of  the  college  and  the  church — 
a  giant  in  chains ;  a  master  of  literature  and  philosophy;  a  cult- 
ured genius,  and  a  moral  maniac.  Doubt  —  that  damning 
disease  of  unconvt^rted  souls,  the  vibration  of  the  restless  spirit 
between  "the  everlasting  yea  and  nay" — burst  forth  in  eloquent 
strains  of  learned  blasphemy  that  shock  the  moral  sense.  He 
moved  forward  toward  the  dismal  future  with  the  reckless  sub- 
limity of  the  tidal  wave.  Did  he  dash  himself  to  pieces  on  the 
dark  rocks  of  the  eternal  shore  and  foam  on  forever  ?  The  obli- 
gations of  duty,  the  doctrines  of  destiny,  must  be  commensurate 
with  the  scale  and  scope  of  mind  and  the  development  of  its  pow- 
ers, or  man  must  ever  be  unbalanced  or  imhappy.  Had  Carlyle 
been  born  again  ;  had  his  christian  culture  Imlanced  his  Titanic 
brain  ;  had  he  been  born  from  above — then  had  he  been  the 
most  magnetic  soul,  the  most  magnificent  mind,  of  the  century. 
A  great  soul  once  awakened  in  a  Christian  country  can  never 
find  rest  till  it  find  it  in  a  crucified  Christ.  Life  without  a  com- 
mensurate motive  is  but  the  philo.sophy  of  despair. 

Emerson  is  the  highest  ideal  of  literary  excellence,  as  he 
understood  it — the  peerless  product  of  the  American  college 
divorced  from  Christian  culture.   He  fed  on  the  great  thoughts  of 


%- 


THK    (  HRisriAN    c:ni,i,F.c;E. 


the  great  men  of  all  ages.  His  mind  was  a  red-hot  crucible,  his 
soul  a  great  evaporating  dish,  where  sublimation  and  condensa- 
tion and  crystallization  were  going  on  constantly.  No  realm  of 
art,  or  literature,  or  philosophy,  he  did  not  master,  from  Plato 
to  Hamilton  ;  from  Zoroaster  to  Carlyle.  He  studied  Homer 
and  Job;  Goethe  and  Napoleon;  St.  John  and  Swedenborg;  but 
all  from  the  literary  side.  He  selects,  condenses,  restates  in 
beautiful  forms  and  with  Emersonian  emphasis.  He  has  the 
insight  of  Swedenborg,  the  scholarship  of  Cioethe,  the  ambition 
of  Napoleon,  and  the  egotism  of  Carlyle;  with  all  their  pro- 
fundity and  perfume,  but  without  the  conscience  and  skepticism 
of  the  former  two,  or  the  spiritual  momentum  and  spontaneous 
life  of  the  latter.  He  is  subtile,  refined,  transcendent,  and  auda- 
cious. He  is  ideal;  he  belongs  to  no  school,  either  in  religion, 
or  philosophy,  or  poetry;  he  lives  on  perfumes  in  the  realm  of 
the  beautiful,  and  never  troubles  himself  about  the  resurrection 
of  the  dead — a  mystic  seer,  a  devoted  Druid,  a  literary  scholar, 
a  cultivated  saint. 

The  doctrine  of  development  and  spontaneous  generation, 
which  has  been  so  completely  exploded  and  renounced  by 
science,  still  remains  popular  in  literature.  It  is  the  doctrine 
of  the  newspaper,  the  magazine,  and  the  novel.  It  colors  our 
poetry,  and  corrupts  our  pulpits.  Depravity  is  regarded  only  as 
a  dogma  of  the  church;  sin  only  a  negation;  virtue  only  devel- 
oped vice;  hence,  man  needs  nothing  but  culture. 

As  well  might  the  scientific  theory  propose  to  convert  a 
crystal  of  quartz  into  a  human  conscience,  or  develop  an  atom 
into  an  angel,  as  for  the  literary  theory  to  teach  that  degenerate 
man  may  become  regenerate  man  by  human  culture. 

THE  (SHI^ISTIAN  THBOf^Y, 

The  church  must  give  some  better  reason  for  the  Christian 
college  than  denominational  pride  or  religious  bigotry.  We 
must  have  a  sufficient  reason,  or  an  immense  amount  of  impu- 


-^  % 


IHE     CHRISl'IAN     COLLEGE. 


k 


dence  or  stupidity,  to  ask  an  intelligent  people  to  erect  buildings 
and  endow  professorships  and  found  libraries  in  the  presence  of 
the  vast  facilities  the  State  has  furnished. 

We  must  have  an  intelligent  faith  as  a  fountain  of 
energy,  resting  on  moral  obligation  as  the  motive  power,  to 
awaken  sympathy,  inspire  enthusiasm,  and  create  a  base  of  sup- 
l)lies  for  an  enterprise  of  so  grand  proportions. 

To  the  question,  "Why  not  hand  over  all  the  denomina- 
tional schools  to  the  State  ?  "  the  fallacy  is  exposed  by  asking 
the  same  question  from  another  standpoint :  Why  not  the  State 
hand  over  all  her  schools  to  the  church  ? 

The  answer  is  as  broad,  as  intelligent,  and  as  American,  as 
the  question.  It  is  as  great  a  presumption  and  strain  of  author- 
ity for  the  State  to  assume  to  educate  all  the  people  as  it  is  for 
the  church.  Facts  show  that  the  intelligence  of  the  people  is  on 
the  side  of  the  church  schools.  Out  of  forty-five  thousand  col- 
lege students,  the  State,  with  better  appliances  and  more  costly 
buildings,  is  educating  only  six  thousand. 

There  are  immense  reservoirs  of  power  in  society  that  can- 
not be  controlled  by  taxation  or  satisfied  with  massive  buildings 
and  magnificent  machinery  as  substitutes  for  moral  development. 

The  State  school  is  based  upon  the  rights  and  duties  of 
man  as  a  citizen. 

The  argument  by  which  this  proposition  is  maintained  is  a 
fallacy  of  false  assumption,  and  is  made  to  rest  on  three  false 
postulates — false,  because  they  contain  but  half  the  truth  ;  and 
hence  the  gravest  and  best  hidden  error  is  cunningly  substituted 
for  the  most  important  truth. 

First — The  free  State  depends  upon  the  intelligence  of  the  cit- 
izen ;  yes,  but  not  on  intelligence  alone.  All  the  history  of  past 
civilizations  proves  that  the  citizen  is  not  free  in  the  ratio  of  his 
intelligence.  The  men  of  Athens  were  both  scholars  and  slaves, 
'i'he  cup  of  Harpalus  contains  both  the  answer  to  the  fallacy  and  a 
lesson  for  the  modern  State.  Demosthenes  and  Despotism  may  be 


^ 


THE    CHRISTIAN    COLLEGE. 


twin  brothers — may  live  togetheragain  in  modern  civilization.  This 
land  of  free  schools  may  reach  an  Augustan  age  of  State  degradation. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Father  of  our  Country  and  the  fathers 
of  our  schools  was,  that  virtue  and  morality  are  more  important 
to  the  citizen  than  mere  intelligence.  Washington  said,  in  his 
last  message  to  the  nation,  that  "reason  and  experience  both 
forbid  us  to  expect  that  national  morality  can  prevail  in  exclu- 
sion of  religious  principles."  This  doctrine  has  been  refined  by 
modern  theorizers  until  now,  in  less  than  a  century,  the  public 
school  system  is  made  to  depend  on  the  prohibition  of  all  relig- 
ious teaching  and  the  rejection  of  the  Holy  Scriptures — the 
only  basis  of  morality  acknowledged  by  the  civilized  world. 

Second — -It  is  the  duty  of  the  State  to  educate  all  who  ex- 
ercise the  rights  of  citizenship. 

If  it  be  anti-rei)ublican  for  the  church  to  educate  or  seek 
to  control  the  education  of  the  citizen,  is  it  not  preposterous  for 
the  State  to  assume  such  a  prerogative  ?  No  government,  how- 
ever civilized,  can  be  entrusted  to  control  and  enforce  the  edu- 
cation of  her  citizens.  There  must  be  checks  both  upon  church 
and  state.  The  doctrine  that  any  State  system  shall  ever  be- 
come constitution  law  is  both  anti-republican  and  dangerous 
to  the  liberties  that  have  been  purchased  at  so  priceless  cost. 

Third — All  schools  should  be  supported  by  a  property  tax, 
and  be  free  to  all. 

This  is  an  error  and  a  wrong  which  has  thus  far  been  borne 
by  the  people  because  it  is  so  well  covered  up  by  the  fallacy, 
"  free  to  all."  The  great  majority  of  the  citizens  of  this  coun- 
try are  excluded  from  her  own  schools  by  the  defects  of  our 
system.  Our  godless  schools  bar  their  doors  from  the  best 
portion  of  her  citizens.  They  prefer  to  pay  their  taxes  to  the 
State  and  make  private  provision  for  their  children  rather  than 
avail  themselves  of  our  "free  schools." 

Our  high  schools  and  State  universities  are  a  waste  of  the 
money  of  a  free  people — taxation  without  representation. 


% 


^  % 


THK     CHRISTIAN     COLLEGE. 


State  schools  are  on  too  narrow  a  gauge  to  attempt  to  edu- 
cate the  American  jjeople.  After  more  than  half  a  century  of 
experience,  with  all  the  advantage  of  the  most  enthusiastic  co- 
operation of  all  the  Protestant  religious  denominations,  and  the 
most  immense  expenditure  of  money,  and  the  use  of  appliances 
of  every  sort,  the  most  intelligent  and  devoted  citizens  are 
more  dissatisfied  than  ever  before ;  the  demand  is  for  reform 
and  reconstruction. 

The  leading  educators  of  the  nation  are  compelled  to  ad- 
vocate the  anti-republican  doctrine  that  every  free  State  system 
of  education  must  be  compulsory.  But  this  doctrine,  where  it 
has  become  a  law,  is  a  dead  letter.  The  free  State  cannot  en- 
force any  doctrine  opposed  to  the  instincts  and  religious  senti- 
ments of  an  intelligent  people.  Building  upon  a  false  premise, 
time  will  reveal  the  error  and  force  the  argument  to  its  logical 
results.  The  public  school  sjstem,  based  only  on  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  people,  after  years  of  faithful  trial,  has  at  last  been 
driven  to  the  bold  but  logical  conclusion  now  adopted  by  the 
leading  educators  of  this  country,  and  indorsed  by  many  good 
but  illogical  minds— that  "every  free,  compulsory  system  must 
be  secular r 

This  conclusion,  though  logical,  is  obnoxious  to  many  of 
our  best  citizens,  and  to  all  good  people  who  are  compelled,  by 
poverty,  to  educate  their  children  in  the  "  free  schools."  It  is 
out  of  harmony  with  the  highest  civilization,  and  anti-republic- 
an. Had  secular,  compulsory  education  been  made  the  basis 
of  our  school  system  in  the  beginning,  it  would  not  have  found 
a  response  in  the  heart  of  the  people — it  would  have  failed.  It 
is  a  European  thought  grafted  into  an  American  institution, 
and  will  produce  more  and  more  friction  as  the  years  move  on. 
The  citizen  must  be  moral  or  the  State  must  die. 

Culture,  in  every  age,  must  include  conscience,  or  the 
people  will  go  back  to  paganism,  and  the  State  sink  to  degrada- 
tion and  die. 


K 


^" 


THE     CHRISTIAN     COI.LF.GK. 


/«!. 


The  college  claims  to  be  the  fountain  of  knowledge,  both 
past  and  present;  the  condensation  of  the  scholarship,  culture, 
and  ex|)erience  of  all  the  past  centuries.  It  presumes  to  be  the 
only  institution  with  authority  to  confer  literary  degrees  and 
scholastic  honors.  It  is  the  great  conservator  of  the  best  inter- 
ests of  humanity  ;  the  expounder  of  principles  that  bind  the 
centuries  together.  It  must  give  shape  to  mind,  and  mold  the 
thought  of  every  age.  If  it  be  the  fountain,  it  must  be  higher  up 
in  the  hills  than  the  people  whom  it  presumes  to  supply.  If  it 
retain  its  dignity  or  maintain  its  authority,  like  Jupiter,  it  must 
live  on  Olympus,  in  the  pure  empyrean,  and  not  be  corrupted 
by  the  spirit  of  the  age. 

We  live  in  a  lop-sided  age ;  hence  the  tendency  to  a  lop- 
sided culture  and  a  lop-sided  college.  The  secular  and  scientific 
spirit  seeks  to  change  the  curricidi/m,  and  rob  it  of  its  moral 
power.  That  which  menaces  the  State,  the  church,  and  the 
college,  is  the  commercial  spirit  of  the  century.  It  consumes 
the  best  energies,  deforms  the  mind,  secularizes  the  soul.  The 
best  brain  is  employed  by  the  great  corporations,  and  leaves  the 
second-rate  mind  for  the  church  and  college.  We  are  import- 
ing our  clergy  and  college  presidents  as  we  do  our  carpets. 
England,  Scotland,  Canada  and  Ireland  are  filling  our  highest 
places  as  presidents  of  our  leading  colleges  and  pastors  of  metro- 
politan churches. 

Ethics  occupies  the  least  space  in  our  colleges,  and  among 
the  best  thinkers  it  seems  to  get  but  little  attention. 

The  time  spent  in  natural  science,  language  and  mathe- 
matics, compared  with  that  devoted  to  moral  science,  is  an 
indication  of  the  place  conscience  occupies  in  the  college 
course.  We  have  journals  published  periodically  in  the 
interests  of  speculative  science,  summer  schools  of  metaphys- 
ics ;  but  no  prominence  is  given  anywhere  to  Christian  ethics. 
Hence  the  antagonisms  in  society:  depraved  impulses,  giving 
birth  to  mobs,  apologizing  for  crime,  moralizing  on  suicide, 
and  legalizing  intemperance,  licentiousness  and  divorce. 


}g  yc 


THE    CHRISTIAN    COLLEGE. 


The  Christian  college  must  lead  in  this  reform,  or  ruin  will 
overtake  the  State 

We  must  no  longer  apologize  for  teaching  the  cardinal  doc- 
trines of  Christianity  in  the  recitations  and  in  the  college  lect- 
ures. 

The  Christian  theory  of  human  culture  is  the  only  complete 
one.  The  world  never  had  a  complete  Master  till  .Jesus  came ; 
nor  was  a  correct  theory  possible  without  a  comprehensive 
anthropology.  He  who__niade  man  could  alone  give  an 
analysis  of  his  nature  and  provide  for  his  development. 

Man  is  the  image  of  God— a  trinity  in  unity  ;  he  has  an 
animal,  intellectual  and  moral  nature ;  a  mind,  a  heart,  a  con- 
science. These  cannot  be  divorced  without  deformity  to  each 
and  loss  to  the  whole.  Again,  the  normal  man  of  this  age  is 
an  ideal  man — a  product  of  the  theories  of  the  ages;  he  is  not 
the  man  that  matriculates  in  our  colleges;  in  the  schoolroom, 
we  have  to  deal  with  depraved  beings,  moral  weaklings;  in  our 
college  classes,  all  need  both  moral  restraints  and  moral  helps. 

Sin  and  grace  are  essential  factors  in  every  system  of 
human  culture.  Moral  life  is  necessary  to  the  highest  intel- 
lectual development.  Moral  training  is  first  in  the  order  of 
importance,  and  first  in  the  order  of  time — "The  fear  of  the 
Lord  is  the  hegi>ifiing  of  wisdom."  The  chair  of  Moral  Science 
is  the  highest  demand  of  the  modern  college ;  its  work  should 
begin  with  the  preparatory  school,  and  continue  through  every 
term  in  the  entire  course — a  system  of  ethics  based  on  personal 
obligation  to  God,  embracing  the  doctrine  of  sin  and  grace;  for 
without  personal  obligation  to  a  Personal  Being  there  can  be  no 
true  ethical  system. 

That  which  is  built  on  utility  or  poetic  aspiration  is  with- 
out authority,  and  absurd.  Morals  can  only  be  taught  from  a 
Christian  standpoint,  and  our  colleges  must  cease  to  apologize 
for  religious  instruction. 

God  is  the  center,  circumference  and    native   stimulus    to 

% ^ 


THE    CHRISTIAN    COLLEGE. 


all  healthy  thought.  Religion  and  its  sublime  problems  have 
ever  absorbed  the  attention  of  the  best  minds  of  the  race. 

Man  must  feed  on  the  great  truths  of  religion  in  order  to 
reach  the  highest  intellectual  attainment.  The  surrender  of 
self  to  the  demands  of  one's  own  spirit  is  the  genesis  of  all 
pure,  exalted  thinking;  the  birth-throe  of  profoundest  thought. 
It  gives  energy,  tone  and  sublimity  to  the  sensibilities;  it  widens 
the  base  of  the  understanding,  increases  the  mental  range, 
equips  the  imagination,  so  that  all  height  and  depth,  the  past 
and  present,  the  future  and  the  infinite,  are  brought  within  the 
field  of  human  exploration. 

Were  it  possible  to  subtract  from  the  field  of  thought  all 
questions  of  duty  and  destiny,  there  would  not  remain  enough 
of  mental  stimulus  to  make  an  average  man,  out  of  the  best 
brain,  with  all  the  books,  buildings  and  appliances  the  age  could 
furnish. 

Religious  problems  cannot  be  banished  from  the  college 
curriculum.  They  cannot  be  excluded.  They  must  be  solved. 
They  are  interwoven  with  the  daily  recitations,  the  experiments 
in  the  laboratory,  and  the  lectures  from  the  rostrum. 

The  Scientific  Theory  proposes  to  deal  only  with  facts  and 
phenomena.  Well,  is  Christ  not  a  fact  ?  is  Christianity  not  a 
phenomenon  ?  What  must  the  college  do  with  them  ?  It  is 
compelled  to  give  some  intelligent  solution  ;  some  satisfactory 
classification  of  the  problems  of  Christianity,  or  close  its  doors. 
Mind  was  never  more  wide-awake ;  it  is  pushing  its  inquiries  to  the 
very  verge  of  thought.  The  soul,  once  awakened,  must  have  help. 
The  thought  of  God,  duty  and  destiny  once  entertained,  the 
sound  mind  will  never  cease  to  vibrate  between  Christianity 
and  skepticism  till  it  has  found  rest  in  some  satisfactory  solution. 
It  will  attempt  to  explore  heaven  and  fathom  hell  without  license 
from  church  or  state ;  hence,  it  is  impossible  to  teach  anything 
in  the  modern  college  without  teaching  some  theory  about  God 
and  human  duty. 


THE    CHRISTIAN    COLLEGE. 


Every  professor  in  every  chair  in  the  colleges  of  this  age  is 
a  professor  of  theology.  Every  professor  preaches,  with  or  with- 
out license  or  ordination.  More  theological  problems  are  dis- 
cussed in  the  college  than  in  the  average  pulpit,  and  every 
student  receives  a  religious  bias.  Every  college  that  proclaims 
that  it  does  not  meddle  with  questions  of  religion  is  a  fraud — 
a  species  of  cowardice  and  dishonesty  that  ought  to  be  exposed. 

The  professor  of  science  may  endeavor  to  limit  all  discus- 
sion to  what  a])pears  in  the  field  of  the  telescope,  or  the  focus 
of  the  microscope,  or  the  residuum  of  the  evaporating  dish.  He 
may  talk  of  atoms  and  molecules,  protoplasm  and  transmuta- 
tion,  forces  and  affinities;  but  the  awakened  soul  is  not  satisfied 
to  feed  on  dictionaries.  It  asks:  Can  matter  be  endowed  with 
living  force?  or  does  Christ  uphold  all  things  by  the  word  of 
his  power? 

The  question  must  be  answered,  and  the  answer  depends 
on  the  man  in  the  chair. 

'i'he  professor  of  literature  has  a  gallery  of  gods,  a  pantheon 
of  geniuses,  heroes,  and  demi-gods,  and  divine  men;  but  has 
no  place  for  the  greatest  phenomenon  in  the  history  of  the  race — 
no  place  for  him  who  is  "the  fullness  of  the  Godhead  bodily." 

The  college  of  the  incoming  century  must  classify  Jesus, 
and  find  some  place  and  satisfactory  exposition  for  the  great 
facts  and  phenomena  of  Christianity,  or  cease  to  talk  of  scien- 
tific methods,  or  surrender  its  charter. 

Conscience,  under  the  restraint  and  culture  of  Christian 
ethics,  is  the  great  want  of  the  age  and  the  race  ;  it  is  the  great 
want  of  the  age.  We  must  not  attempt  to  put  brakes  on  the 
business  spirit  of  the  age;  the  commerce  of  to-day  is  the  growth 
of  all  the  centuries,  and  the  legitimate  outgrowth  of  the  dis- 
coveries of  this  age.  It  cannot  be  crushed;  it  must  not  be  dis- 
couraged. We  must  rather  bring  up  the  slow,  depraved  side  of 
humanity;  religion  must  give  direction  to  our  culture,  and  con- 
science guide  the   affairs  of  commerce.     Morals    must  be  the 


THE    CHRISTIAN    COLLEGE. 


great  factor  in  the  education  of  the  people.  This  is  the  Amer- 
ican idea  of  the  citizen.  Virtue  is  more  important  than  mere 
intelligence.  We  need  science  to  create  more  bread,  cheaj)er 
and  better  clothes,  and  more  convenient  and  beautiful  homes; 
we  need  machinery  and  corporations  to  save  labor  and  time, 
that  the  race  may  be  lifted  up.  But  morality  must  balance  the 
spirit  of  the  age,  or  depravity,  like  dynamite,  may  blow  the 
nation  to  atoms.  It  is  the  power  back  of  intellect  that  stimu; 
lates  thought,  checks  the  passions,  corrects  the  judgment,  modi- 
fies the  sensibilities,  governs  the  will,  and  tips  the  scales  in  the 
emergencies  of  life,  and  gives  character  to  the  citizen. 

It  is  the  great  want  of  the  race.  It  is  the  highest  fountain 
of  energy.  The  clock  clogs  by  the  accumulations  of  dust ;  it 
must  be  cleaned  and  oiled,  in  order  to  keep  time.  The  heart  not 
under  the  control  of  conscience,  like  the  California  Geysers, 
sends  forth  streams  hot  and  sulphurous,  that  poison  the  atmos- 
phere and  kill  the  grass,  and  fade  the  flowers  on  the  hillsides. 
Under  the  power  of  a  healthy  conscience  the  soul  moves  for- 
ward and  upward  with  a  sublime  energy.  The  movement  is 
spontaneous,  heaven-born.  As  the  eagle  is  not  fettered  by  his 
ignorance  of  the  analysis  of  the  laws  of  aerial  navigation,  but 
makes  his  mathematical  curves  and  attains  his  highest  altitude 
by  a  fresh-born  instinct,  so  consecrated  genius  has  never  de- 
pended on  scholastic  gamuts  for  its  highest  notes.  The  highest 
attainments  made  in  the  history  of  the  race  have  been  made  by 
mind  under  the  supreme  control  of  conscience.  The  grandest 
discoveries,  the  most  useful  inventions,  the  most  exalted  crea- 
tions, the  tumultuous  rapture  that  has  thrilled  the  ages,  the  souls 
that  have  poured  forth  their  treasures  in  richest  rhythm,  are 
those  who  have  moved  under  the  power  of  a  cultivated  con- 
science. 

True  science  is  the  product  of  the  love  of  knowledge.  Im- 
mortal literature  must  be  born  out  of  a  supreme  love  of  the 
beautiful.     The    beautiful    in    the  forms  of  sense  must  have  a 


Si 


THE    CHRISTIAN    COLLEGE. 


higher  origin  than  human  imagination.  It  must  not  only  be  "the 
splendor  of  the  true" — the  ideal  of  Plato— but  the  splendor  of 
the  Truth. 

If  there  is  nothing  back  of  beauty — no  personal,  eternal 
ideal;  if  there  is  no  morality  in  art,  then  is  there  no  real  inspira- 
tion. The  great  world-poets  belong  to  the  school  of  conscience 
of  necessity.  They  live  in  the  realm  of  broader  thought  and 
higher  sentiment ;  have  greater  powers  of  intuition,  more  subtile- 
ness,  keener  analysis,  more  spirituality.  The  most  exalted  genius 
has  ever  lingered  about  the  great  problems  of  being,  duty,  and 
destiny.  Here,  in  this  realm  of  angels  and  personal  presence,  they 
must  ever  remain.  The  college  and  the  church  can  never  be  di- 
vorced, but  at  the  expense  of  the  forward  movement  of  the  race. 
The  college  halls  are  next  in  importance  to  our  church  altars. 
All  beyond  the  conversion  of  the  soul  and  its  spiritual  growth 
that  man  needs  is  education  —  complete,  symmetrical  devel- 
opment. 

The  work  contemplated  in  the  elevation  of  the  race  is  the 
renewal  of  a  depraved  nature  and  the  development  of  fallen,  fee- 
ble faculties.  Any  system  that  makes  no  provision  for  the  doc- 
trines of  sin  and  grace  can  never  succeed  in  meeting  the  wants  of 
men.  The  Christian  College  is  as  old  as  the  church,  and  essen- 
tial to  its  existence  and  growth.  The  colleges  at  Jerusalem, 
Tarsus,  Alexandria,  Antioch,  Rome  and  Caesarea  were  the  out- 
growth and  helpmeets  of  the  church.  The  reformation  began 
in  the  college,  and  here  our  Methodism  found  both  a  birth-place 
and  a  cradle. 

The  college  of  the  future  needs  a  new  text-book  and  a  new 
chair.  Christianity  is  both  a  science  and  a  literature  as  well  as 
a  religion.  Its  history  is  full  of  facts,  wonderful  phenomena, 
and  most  remarkable  achievements.  It  has  exerted  the  greatest 
influence  on  civilization,  moral  reforms,  and  the  speculative 
thought  of  the  centuries.     Jesus  is  the  greatest  fact  in  the  his- 


THE    CHRISTIAN    COLLEGE. 


tory  of  the  race.  This  scientific  age  must  find  a  place  for  these 
facts  and  phenomena,  or  confess  its  impotency. 

We  have  authority  for  teaching  Christianity  in  the  great 
commission.  Go  preach  and  teach,  is  the  divine  plan  in  the 
divine  order. 

Physical  science  should  have  a  large  space  in  the  college 
curriculum.  It  should  be  studied  not  less,  but  more;  but  studied 
from  a  new  standpoint,  and  from  a  higher  motive.  Analysis 
and  classification  is  the  chief  aim  of  modern  science;  secular 
advantage  the  great  motive.  But  nature,  like  its  Author,  lies 
beyond  the  realm  of  pure  reason;  beyond  the  limits  of  the 
purely  scientific^  secular  soul.  It  shrinks  from  the  gaze  of  the 
microscope,  and  can  only  be  seen  through  a  glass  darkly.  It 
rebels  at  being  .pounded  in  a  mortar;  it  escapes  from  the  fires 
of  the  crucible  unseen,  like  the  angel  of  Manoah,  without  utter- 
ing a  word  or  revealing  its  great  secrets. 

Nature  has  no  free  school,  no  complimentary  tickets; 
heaven  confers  no  honors  till  fairly  won.  He  that  would  hear 
the  concerts  of  the  woods,  drink  in  the  beauties  of  the  landscape, 
and  feed  on  flowers,  must  live  like  Prospero  in  the  enchanted 
Isle  of  Harmony;  must  hunger  and  thirst;  hear  with  the  heart 
and  see  with  the  soul.  Nature  is  not  mere  material  atoms  bound 
together  by  molecular  attraction;  it  has  its  ethical  side.  Its 
great  secrets  are  revealed  only  to  the  highest  motive  and  by  the 
most  subtile  laws  of  spirit.  The  highest  knowledge  comes 
through  contemplation,  rather  than  reflection.  There  is  a  logic 
of  the  soul  that  must  find  a  place  in  the  college  of  the  future 
centuries. 

The  sacred  literature  of  Christianity  contains  the  grandest 
truths,  the  most  matchless  forms  of  expression,  and  the  only  true 
philosophy  of  language. 

Truth  is  transcendent,  ineffable.  It  cannot  be  defined  nor 
expressed  in  propositions  or  by  diagrams.  The  highest  truth 
must  be  incarnated  to  be  understood  by  mortals ;  must  be  real- 


293485 


THE     CHRISTIAN    COLLEGE. 


ized  by  the  human  soul.  Next  to  the  study  of  Jesus'  life — which 
is  a  living  drama,  a  moral  epic — is  the  study  of  his  language. 
His  language  is  the  perfect  expression  of  a  perfect  mind.  It 
consists  of  words  and  their  correlation  or  arrangement. 

His  words  are  physical  pictures  of  thought.  His  rhythm 
is  the  expression  of  the  emotion  of  his  soul.  He  takes  his 
vocabulary,  paradigms,  and  metaphors  from  nature — the  original 
te.xt-book  on  rhetoric,  containing  the  sum  of  all  language,  the 
complete  grammar  of  God,  the  key  to  all  human  expression. 
Proverb  and  paradox,  parable  and  poem,  are  the  divine  forms  of 
expression.  Jesus  found  Palestine  full  of  ethics  and  theology. 
It  was  the  the  transcript  of  his  own  mind — a  stereotyped  edition 
for  all  time. 

A  chair  of  sacred  rhetoric,  where  Moses,  and  the  prophets, 
and  the  Psalms,  and  the  methods  of  Jesus  are  taught,  and  the 
the  philosophy  of  language  is  studied  from  these  old  text-books, 
is  essential  to  the  highest  literary  and  Christian  culture — essen- 
tial to  a  profound  and  correct  interpretation  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures. 

Christianity  has  a  sacred  literature  unecjualed  in  its  wealth 
of  thought  and  models  of  expression.  If  the  highest  culture 
demands  the  study  of  the  models  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  mas- 
ters and  the  philosophic  methods  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  how 
can  we  neglect  the  manner  and  methods  of  Jesus,  or  the  style 
and  charming  rhetoric  of  the  prophets  and  evangelists  ? 

We  need  a  text-book  on  the  methods  of  thought  and  the  style 
of  expression  of  Jesus,  who  is  the  prince  of  philosophers  and 
rhetoricians — a  text-book  that  will  classify  the  facts  of  Christian- 
ity, bring  to  the  front  the  sublimest  literature  and  a  true  anthro- 
pology; the  doctrines  of  depravity  and  sin;  grace  and  salvation, 
and  the  helps  of  the  Holy  Spirit — the  only  basis  upon  which 
a  correct  and  symmetrical  culture  is  possible. 

The  college  of  the  coming  century  must  be  broader,  more 
scientific,    more   religious,    and   more   closely   wedded    to   the 


2?, 


THE    CHRISTIAN    COLLEGE. 


church.  The  stabiHty  of  the  state,  the  purity  and  power  of  the 
church,  and  the  elevation  of  the  race,  will  depend  more  on  the 
Christian  College  in  the  future  than  ever  before.  It  must  be 
endowed,  and  ought  to  be  made  as  free  as  the  church.  The 
church  has  the  wealth,  and  the  tendency  is  in  this  direction. 
Sixty-one  million  five  hundred  thousand  dollars,  the  free-will 
offerings  of  Christian  men  to  Christian  schools  in  the  last  ten 
years,  are  both  prophecy  and  prelude  that  a  system  of  Christian 
education  shall  be  established  in  California  that  shall  be  a 
monument  to  the  Christian  men  of  this  age  and  a  rich  inherit- 
ance to  the  unborn  generations. 


Christian  men  of  California:  You  live  in  a  commercial 
age;  its  spirit  is  developing  your  latent  energies.  Let  it  not 
absorb  your  noblest  powers,  or  color  your  highest  life.  Let 
your  beneficence  be  on  the  same  scale  with  your  secular  suc- 
cess. Put  the  church  and  the  Christian  College  on  the  same 
plane,  at  least,  with  the  hotels  and  warehouses,  railroad  palaces 
and  princely  homes  of  the  money  kings. 

Heaven  has  provided  only  for  the  divine  renewal  of  the 
human  soul;  the  work  of  providing  for  the  complete  culture  of 
the  race  is  left  to  be  done  by  the  renewed  man. 

May  Heaven  not  be  disappointed  in  the  Christian  men  of 
California  ! 


\ 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  AT  LOS  ANGELES 

THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


r  11 


B  20 


3 
1978 


Form  L-n 
20m-l, •■12(8518) 


I 


oWIVERSITY  OF  oiiLiruhmj* 

AT 

LOS  ANCSI£S 


383        Nelson  - 
N33c     The 

Christian 

hLlege. 


L  009  572 


- 


\  .  0\s.c-c'->|vSl1- 


■  U  !      ,t  i-^-4^><H^ 


AA    00l'280  24P    ! 


LC 

383 
N33c 


>"• 


'mmm 


